


The Trials Of Those Who Keep Squirrels

by SaintClaire



Series: The Comparing Of Residents To Squirrels [1]
Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Autism, Dr Glassman is a puddle of concern without Shaun, Gen, Happy Ending, I finally got to use the squirrel metaphor, Jess is a good fiancee, Melendez is a teddy bear in kevlar so no-one knows, Promise, all the women are BAMF in their own way, because I wanted kissing, everyone works out their issues, minor swears, mostly Melendez POV, set after Ep Sacrifice, there is kissing, there were a lot of issues to work out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:45:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintClaire/pseuds/SaintClaire
Summary: In response to that gif of Melendez going around on tumblr, of the guy who comes back from the 5 minutes it took to get the pizza and then the room's on fire and the people are going nuts.  It spoke to me, and said 'write this' so I did.After the dramatic conclusion of 'Sacrifice' this is:  Melendez sorts his residents out one by one, deals with the bombshell Jess just dropped, picks Dr Glassman up from his puddle of worry, and yells at various assorted doctors for being creepy and/or mean.  But he's not worried about any of them, of course.  He's concerned about Jess, yes, because she's his fiancée, but he's not actually personally concerned about any of the others.  Oh no.But actually, Oh yes.





	The Trials Of Those Who Keep Squirrels

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, guys, guys, I did it! I know we'll find out what actually happened in like a month, but that wasn't close enough for me so I wrote this for myself in the meantime. And then I thought you guys might like it as well. And I wrote it from mostly Melendez's POV, because, well, I love Melendez. He moves in leaps and bounds (and small steps downward) through my good graces. 
> 
> If you want to come say hello on Tumblr, the blog's mostly Sherlock but come say hello anyway! I love the Good Doctor, and hopefully this link takes you to the right place- https://radpeacharbiter.tumblr.com

 

He never should have become an attending surgeon. All those vague, somewhat honourable intentions about teaching others and passing on knowledge simply wasn’t worth it, not when he didn’t make it through a single shift without one of his little underlings creating an issue. And today? He’d turned around for five minutes – and everything had gone to hell in a hand basket.

 

* * *

  

The surgery had gone better than expected, and Bobby’s ludicrously optimistic attitude minutes out of anaesthesia was both mind-boggling, and encouraging. He had to hand it to the kid, he knew what he wanted to get out of his life. The roster had worked out as planned, for once, so he was expecting to be able to finish on time today, maybe take Jess out somewhere to make up for the utter disaster that had been last night. And then Jess had appeared, and that thought had flown out of his mind.

 

Jess’s confession about not wanting kids had been a bit out of the blue. Not entirely unexpected perhaps – her dad had pushed pretty hard last night, and he’d been paying at least some attention during that slightly off conversation where she’d asked if he would want to adopt, if having their own children wasn’t an option. Given the fact that she almost looked close to tears in front of him now, he possibly should have put slightly more thought into that over the last few weeks.

 

He didn’t have a chance to keep thinking about this however, as Aaron came flying through his door, panicked, nearly hyperventilating, begging to know if he had seen Shaun.

 

Yeah, he wasn’t going home on time tonight.

 

Aaron’s explanation was complicated and a little garbled, he was trying his best to tell him what had happened, but Melendez was having a bit of trouble following. He’d gotten something about Shaun running away because he didn’t want something, something about a meltdown over a therapist, but Aaron was getting more and more worked up as he tried to explain, and thankfully that was were Jess moved to intervene, trying to get him to slow down and focus on her.

 

Aaron had better luck talking to Jess, or maybe Jess was having better luck deciphering what he was saying, Melendez wasn’t sure but he felt a wave of guilt roil uncomfortable through his stomach. He’d been worried about Shaun, for the last few days, but he’d brushed it off. He’d been concerned about his youngest resident, to the point where he’d gone to the person Shaun was closest to, but he’d let himself be brushed away with barely a sentence of cold reassurance, based only on the quality of the young man’s work. He should have tried harder, he thought a little miserably, looking at Aaron’s white face, near tears in his worry. He worked with Jess, trying to reassure him, but at the news that Shaun had cleaned out his apartment, he felt the guilt and worry settle a little deeper in his stomach, hardening uncomfortably.

 

There was a soft knock at the door, and a young woman Melendez didn’t recognise poked her head through shyly.

 

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Dr Glassman? The receptionist said I could find him through here…” she trailed off at the atmosphere in the room, and as Glassman twitched at his name, she took one look at his white face and heaving chest before looking back to Melendez.  Aaron looked seconds away from a panic attack.

 

Melendez stepped forwards, holding his hands out in a gesture of apology. “I’m sorry Miss, but now really isn’t a good time, would you mind leaving your name with-“

 

“No.” Her voice was harsh, firm, at odds with her meek behaviour. He stepped back in surprise, growing a little confused as she crossed her arms angrily, looking determined. “This won’t wait. One of your doctors is a predator who has been sexually harassing your female staff, and you don’t get to sweep that under the rug”.

 

The silence in the room was deafening.

 

In his peripheral vision he watched Jess sweep a hand through her hair and take a deep breath, before visibly pulling herself together and turning to face the young women. “No, we will not be sweeping that under the rug. I’m sorry ma’am, your name was…?”

 

“Celia Collins.” Her face, which had been turning red was starting to return to normal, her body language less defensive now that someone was listening.

 

Jess was standing tall, professional, no trace of her earlier angst on her face, she looked ready to do her job, and do it well. He cursed her father silently for believing that his daughter ought to become his housewife over this. “Well good morning, Miss Collins, my name is Jessica Preston and I am the in-house attorney for this hospital. What is it that you’ve seen from a hospital staff member that you feel constitutes sexual harassment?”.

 

Celia looked at her feet, appearing to gather herself for a moment before looking up to meet Jessica’s eyes. “I was a patient of Dr Coyle for the last several days, he performed a surgery on the fascia in my legs. There were follow up complications, and for a while I was on… it was called a respirator? They thought I was asleep.” She took a deep breath, and shifted her gaze to look him in the eyes, still looking faintly accusatory. “Dr Coyle asked the woman in the room to get a drink with him. She said no politely, and he went way out of line. He spat vitriol at her, went right into her personal space. He made rude comments about her sex life with another man.” She began to stutter slightly, looking back down at her feet. “I was still on that machine, I couldn’t talk. But… I thought he was going to hit her. He wouldn’t back away. A couple of days ago he was touching her – it wasn’t anything outright sexual, but he was rubbing her back, for way longer than normal. I tried to ask her about it a bit later, but-.” She looked away again, and Melendez shifted uncomfortably, mentally swearing his head off. This was going to get messy, and if it involved a female staff member, it was going to get ugly. Trying to run his mind through the nurses who would have been assisting Coyle’s patient, he stepped back, noticing that Aaron had fallen into his desk chair with his head in his hands, abandoning all pretence of trying to look like he could cope with this situation.

 

There were quite a few problems in this room at the moment, but he was going to have to triage. Right now he had a junior resident missing, and a colleague about to have a mental breakdown over him. That was going to have to take priority. “Miss Collins, I appreciate you stepping forward to make us aware of this”, he said politely, moving around his desk to take Aaron’s limp wrist in his fingers, feeling for the pulse. “If you wouldn’t mind following Ms Preston to her office, she’ll be able to take down all the details of your complaint and assist you in any way she can.”

 

He caught the racing pulse between his fingertips just as the door was thrown open and Andrews stalked in, looking pissed. “Dr Melendez, you’ve just lost one of your residents-“ right as Celia blew up, throwing her hands up in frustration – “Dr Browne literally saved my life, and you'll let the creep that harassed her still serve at this hospital-!”

 

“ENOUGH” roared Melendez, feeling Aaron’s already racing heart rate jump higher. He moved quickly to support his chest, yanking his stethoscope off as he did so, while Andrews, finally noticing that there were more people in the room than there should have been leapt to assist him, moving swiftly around to Aaron’s other side, already reaching out to help.

 

“His heartbeat’s pounding, what the hell is going on?” the other man snapped, leaning down to look at Aaron’s pupils.

 

Wasn’t that the fucking question of the hour?

 

“Shaun’s gone missing, and I’d say he’s going into shock,” he snapped back, throwing his stethoscope back around his neck. He raised his voice to a yell, a demand for oxygen and extra help, and yet more people rushed into his office, helping Dr Glassman lie down, as Andrews loosened his clothes.

 

He saw Jess escort the girl through the pandemonium out of the corner of his eye, and felt a pang that their conversation had been interrupted – she was hurting, and there was an issue here. He was starting to get angry, truly angry as he turned back around to his friend, gasping and white faced on the floor, forcing Coyle and Claire out of his mind for the time being. He couldn’t help her right now. Priorities.

 

He got down on his knees and began untangling the oxygen tubing, offering up a quick prayer for the man’s heart. This needed to stay as a panic attack-turned shock, and not escalate into a heart attack. He was dimly aware of Andrews’ wife suddenly beside him, her calm voice walking Aaron through his breathing, encouraging him to slow down and calm his breaths.

 

No go. He was still too panicked, too worried about where his young protégée might be to hear her. Melendez ditched the tubing and grasped his friend’s hand, interlocking their fingers and shifting his wrist slightly so he was still able to keep track of the pulse.

“I’m going to find him Aaron”, he said softly, squeezing his hand a little to command his attention. The older man managed to lock gazes with him, still gasping and white faced, but listening. “We’re going to find him. He’s going to be okay, and we’re going to find him.” His breath hitched as Isobel took up the mantra seamlessly, throwing him a quick look of horror before she too poured her effort into reassurance, laying her hands on Aaron’s chest. “We will find him Aaron, and he’s going to be just fine” she soothed, grounding her presence as his breaths became ever so slightly longer, drawing slightly more air into his aging lungs. “We’re going to find him”.

 

Melendez was starting to get a little panicky himself, but he reigned it in as he helped Isobel, sitting with his arse on the carpet as Aaron’s breathing evened out inch by inch. He saw Andrews look up at him in confusion as they promised over and over that they would find Shaun, that he was going to be okay, but he ignored him.

 

What the fuck? Wasn’t that why the man had just stomped into his office in the first place, to inform him he had a resident MIA?

 

They kneeled there together, the frontrunners of this hospital, waiting for Glassman to get his breathing under control, when Allegra slipped in, laying down her dignity to join them on the floor.

 

Her voice was whisper soft when she spoke, but it still had the thread of steel in it that meant she expected to be obeyed regardless. “Now that everything is calming down in here Dr Melendez, Dr Andrews, you can leave now.” Aaron’s face was still white, his eyes half-shut, but his breathing was almost back at baseline levels, his pulse following suit. “I believe you both have several issues to attend to. Isobel and I can take it from here”. He looked up quickly, took one glance at her face and nodded, gently squeezing Aaron’s hand before relinquishing it to Allegra, and standing up.

 

“You can use my office” she said, not bothering to look up at them as she folded her legs beneath her. He nodded, and backed carefully out of the way, trying not to trip over and legs or desks as Andrews picked his way out of the jumble of equipment on the floor, and they headed over to the door. Dismissed, they walked quietly out of the room unspeaking, mindful of the old man on the floor who lay afraid, and grieving, in the loss of a surgeon who might as well have been his son.

 

* * *

  

Away from the terror and pain of his office, Melendez crossed his arms, put on what Jess affectionately referred to as his bitch face, and turned to face Andrew’s head on.

 

“Explain.”

 

And so the other man bit out a short explanation that rather than his initial missing resident being ‘lost’, Dr Kalu had in fact just been fired for an assault charge against one Dr Coyle.

 

Melendez took a deep breath through his nose, and let it out slowly, feeling the little vein in his left temple beating harshly against it’s vessel walls. “I assume this would be the same Dr Coyle I just had a hospital patient appear in my office to make a sexual assault claim against a staff member on.”

 

Andrew’s double take would almost have been enough to make him laugh, if anything about this situation was remotely funny. As it was, he watched the man scramble, trying to work out what information he didn’t have. Eventually, he gave in, and just asked.

 

“Which staff member?”, he said hoarsely, clearly wondering exactly how far this clusterfuck went.

 

Melendez sighed, slumped, and put his head in his hands, scrubbing his hands over his face roughly before looking back at his colleague. “Dr Browne”, he said softly, drawing his own mental scenario as Andrews filled the rest of his is. “I suppose that would explain the reason behind Kalu’s assault of a senior doctor”.

 

The two men looked at the floor for a minute, just processing.

 

“Did he say anything?”, he asked, looking back at Andrews suddenly. “Did he tell you that he took a swing at Coyle because of something he did to Dr Browne? Give any kind of explanation?”

 

Andrews scowled, glaring out the window like the view was at fault here. “No he didn’t. But that was probably on my end, I didn’t give him much of a opportunity to.   Physical assault of a doctor was grounds for dismissal right there, so… I dismissed him.”

 

Now Melendez looked up and glared at him. “You fired one of my residents on grounds of assault against an attending doctor and didn’t bother to even find out his reasoning behind it?”. He stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets and stomped over to the window. “You didn’t even ask for his side of the story?”.

 

Andrews didn’t really blush, due to his skin tone, but despite that fact the he looked Melendez dead in the eye without replying, he thought he could detect a vague trace of embarrassment.

 

“Fucking Christ!” he swore, giving in to a much supressed habit of swearing out loud. “So right now, you’re telling me you’ve just fired one of my residents for hitting the attending who sexually harassed one of the other residents, which a patient _actually observed and came forward about,_ the other resident has run away after some kind of breakdown and we don’t know where he is and whether he’s alright, and the way you handled the situation guarantees that on top of all that, we’re going to be answering questions from Legal about a case of sexual harassment, at the least!” He was shouting now, body fully turned towards Andrews, who just stood there without a word.

 

He swore again, angrily stomping across to the other side of the room where he balled his fists up and stared at the wall for several moments, before giving in an thumping it with both hands, dropping his head between his arms. He stood there like that for several long minutes, now trying to get his own breathing under control, both of them back to saying nothing. Eventually, he picked his head back up and swung back around to look at Andrews, dropping into the mindset that let him solve problems one by one.

 

“Fine. I need to sort out some stuff here. Prioritise, triage style. Starting with where the fuck Shaun Murphy is, and wether he’s alright. You can clean up your own mess.”

 

* * *

 

  

Carly’s voice drowned out the radio as she drove, belting out songs at the top of her lungs. It was the type of day where she felt like singing, no matter how many people stared at her when she had to stop for traffic lights. She’d caught up on her backlog of work, she’d found the earing she thought she’d lost for good months ago while cleaning out her drawers, and that guy in radiology had stammered out a request for a date when he dropped by that morning. Granted, she’d declined, but it was always nice to be asked.

Dusk was also her favourite time of day, when the sky was darker-but-not-dark, the sun had disappeared, and taken most of the city’s people with it. Unfortunately, one of the few drawbacks about dusk meant that it became harder to see both pedestrians and other road users. Right up until they leapt out in front of your car.

 

The scream she let out as she swerved put her singing volume to shame, as did the almighty crash of the group of dustbins she’d driven into before the car had stalled.   She sat there for a moment, panting and trembling, taking stock of the fact that she was alive and uninjured before leaping out of the car and running to the body lying prone in the middle of the road.

The guy was trying to sit up, thank God for that, and she threw herself down beside him, anxiously patting their air around him as the few bystanders ran to help. “Oh my God, are you okay? Oh man, I’m so sorry, I honestly didn’t see you until – Shaun!”

 

She stared, hands falling to her sides in shock as he finished sitting up and curled into a ball, arms wrapped tightly around his legs as he rocked ever so slightly back and forth. He seemed to become quickly aware of the bystanders then, the racket that was going on and he lifted his hands to mash them against his ears, as Carly’s brain came back online and she tried to shoo everyone away, loudly reassuring the strangers that the man was alright and she knew him, and she could take him to the hospital, it was all fine. One by one they started to dissipate, suspiciously looking back at her like they expected her to hoist him into the boot and drive off. She crouched on the balls of her feet and reached out, awkwardly trying to take Shaun by the hands without touching him.

 

“Hey Shaun? Gotta work with me here my friend, we need to get off the road yeah? And then we can sit back down because I actually need to have a little heart attack right now as well, but first we have to get of the road.”

 

It was agonisingly slow, but Shaun eventually unfolded and even grasped one of her hands, accepting the help up and the two of them hobbled over to where Carly’s car was still conked out in a ring of upturned bins. At least they had been emptied earlier in the day, because Shaun didn’t look like he was taking all that much stock of his surroundings as he slumped against the door of her car and curled back into a ball. Carly also decided that was a great idea at the moment, and plopped down beside him, squiggling over a bit when he seemed uncomfortable, and worked on riding out her own terror-fuelled adrenaline rush.

 

They sat their together, in the growing dark without talking, and without looking at each other until finally Carly felt stable enough to turn towards Shaun, letting her head tilt sideways to rest on the doorframe.

 

He looked like hell. The poor guy was absolutely covered in sweat, or rain, or both, his clothes dark with liquid. There were faint red marks on his arms and face that suggested he had been hit. Looking closely, she would also wager that the faint outlines down his face and neck were tear tracts. He had a backpack tucked safely between his leg, and a large duffel bag was on the other side of him, completely stuffed, with what looked the leg of his scrubs poking out from the zip. He didn’t acknowledge her blatant staring, but he’d stop the minute rocking movements, and now they both just sat there, limp in their exhaustion.  

 

“Shaun?” she asked quietly. “Have you had a shitty day today?”

 

He moved a little, and though he didn’t meet her eyes his head was turned in her direction, inclined downwards toward her. He appeared to think about it for a little while.

 

“Yes,” he said simply. “I have had a very shitty day today.” She hummed in agreement, and they sat there for a little while longer.

 

“Did I hurt you at all before? I really am sorry. I didn’t see you until you leapt out in front of me.”

 

“I’m uninjured.” he said slowly. “You had already turned your car away toward the wall when you reached me. The car clipped me due to the existing acceleration force. I am uninjured. You are not injured either. That is good.” He made a strange movement with his head in her direction, like he had gone to look at her face and then aborted the movement.

 

Carly nodded, letting out a breath. “Yeah. Even the car’s uninjured, yay for me,” she smiled. “Glad I don’t have to explain that one to insurance.”

 

Shaun bobbed his head and didn’t reply, still staring off toward the road. Carly thought about it, and then slowly reached out with her hand, resting it on the ground next to his, very deliberately not letting them touch. Shaun stopped staring at the road and looked at her hand for a minute, before reaching out, slowly and hesitantly, before patting it twice and then tucking both his hands inside his lap, under his backpack.

Carly smiled again and withdrew her own hands, reaching back to lift her hair out of her eyes. The cars going past in the last 10 minutes had been starting to look at them weirdly. “People who’ve had shitty days deserve to not have to cook dinner.” she said decisively. “Do you want to come over to my place and we can order not-shitty Indian food and watch renovation shows?”

 

He thought about it again, staring away from her. “I don’t like Indian food.”, he eventually said.

 

“Whatever floats your boat my friend. The only rule about eating dinner after shitty days is that you can’t cook it yourself, it’s not limited to a particular cuisine. What do you want?”

 

She didn’t know what she said. She didn’t have any idea why his head suddenly snapped up and he looked her in the eye briefly for the first time since she’d recognised him. He even gave an almost smile, before looking back down at his bag. “Sushi”, he said, almost to himself. “I want sushi.”

 

“Sushi it is”, she agreed, pushing to her feet. “Come on. If we sit here any longer someone will call the police and they’ll take us away for loitering, and they don’t deliver sushi in gaol”.

  

* * *

 

Neil Melendez was very close to yelling. Shaun wasn’t allowed to be declared missing yet, because all in all he was a grown adult and the police had decided to read the situation as an overworked resident storming off after a bad day at work. He hadn’t enjoyed telling Aaron that, though he was still with Isobel and another women who was Shaun’s Life Coach, or something along those lines. They were trying to work out a list of places he might have gone, the contents of which were depressingly small, and rather worrying.

 

He couldn’t find Jared, who had apparently left the hospital shortly after being fired. He had found Claire purely by accident, after looking for her for an hour, but barging in on a female resident crying in a bathroom didn’t incite them to stick around. She had taken one look at him and booked it.

 

He could not find Dr Coyle either, which he couldn’t decide as a good outcome or a bad outcome at this point in time, but he had walked past Dr Lim, who had given him a look of pity. Either someone had overheard the yelling matches going on in the upper echelons of these hallowed walls, or he looked like utter shit. She’d pointedly informed him that the schedule had been rearranged and he wasn’t needed for the next few days, so there wasn’t any point in his showing up to work. Deciding to avoid having that conversation, he’d simply nodded, thanked her, and moved on.

 

Jess was still with Celia Collins, nutting out the details of what she’d witnessed between Dr Coyle and Dr Browne. He’d stopped by to check on her, hoping that she might be done, but the wan smile and employee complaint file in front of her said differently.

 

He threw himself into his desk chair, threw professionalism to the wind, and poured himself two fingers of the good scotch he kept locked under his desk, belting it all back in a healthy gulp. He stared morosely at the picture of Jess and himself at the beach she’d loved so much in Australia, the brilliance of the sun in the background making the sky look white.

 

He picked up his phone and dialled Shaun’s number, which went to message bank as he’d kind of expected it to do. He tried again. Same result, he was an idiot for thinking that would work. He tried Jared’s number, which didn’t even ring before it sent him to message bank, so it wasn’t altogether unlikely that his unlikeably tall resident had simply gone out to get plastered, and turned his phone off. In which case, good for him. Someone deserved to get drunk right now, and it wasn’t about to be him.

 

He shuffled through his phone to Claire’s number, his finger hovering over the call button before thinking better of it. He should probably talk to Jess, or perhaps someone from the psych department before he tried to contact Claire. Enough mistakes had been made in the last few days, he didn’t want to make the situation worse by sticking his foot in it, trying to help a younger female resident. As a doctor and a senior staff member he had some experience talking to women who had been sexually harassed or assaulted, and there were guidelines to help with that. Sadly, as a doctor and a staff member, he seemed to have let his team down in the past 36 hours.

 

The feminine cough at the door had him near catapulting out of his chair, only to realise he was still holding the photo of the two of them in his other hand, moving like a demented spider to put it down gently. He took one look at the tired, but bemused look on Jess and literally ran to her, wrapping his arms around her strong frame and just holding on.

 

He heard the small huff of surprise as he collided with her, but she moved to embrace him back, both of them standing in the middle of an open doorway of their workplace, clinging to each other for dear life.

 

Reluctantly, he pulled himself backwards, tilting his head so he could look his fiancée in the eye. He took a deep breath, trying to think of what to say, opening his mouth just as she decided to cut him off by kissing him. The kiss was long, and slow, warm lips moving together in recognition. Several minutes go by, and he’s content to stay just like this, both of them wrapped tightly around each other. This time, it’s her that pulls back reluctantly, letting her head sink down to his shoulder, so she can tuck her face against his neck. It’s an old gesture, something she only does when she wants to stop being capable of everything, and just bury herself in him so she doesn’t have to look at the world for a while.

 

He can feel the damp puffs of air against his neck, and he closes his eyes and buries his face in her hair in return. “We do need to have a conversation about this”, she murmurs to his neck. “But it might have to wait a few days.” He hums in agreement, deeper than he needs to so she can feel the vibrations with her lips, still pressed to his neck.

 

“I couldn’t get hold of Shaun,” he confesses in a low voice. “They won’t declare him as a missing person for another 20 hours or so”. He feels Jess wilt a little further against him, and feels bad that he doesn’t have some kind of better news to tell her. She likes Shaun, he knows she does, partly on his own merits and partly because of all the stories she’s heard through Aaron. He used to show Jess photos on his phone of Shaun like a proud father, treated them as something precious due to their rarity, since Shaun had to been cajoled into appearing in a photo and Aaron usually had to be present for him to agree.

 

He strokes a hand up the length of her back absently, wishing to smooth all the pain and worry of the evening away. It’s inadequate, but it’s also the best he can do.

 

“Hey,” he murmurs, untangling them to look her in the eye. “We’re going to find him. And he’s going to be back in my OR, being his usual, snarky, pain-in-the-arse self, finding ridiculous solutions to invisible problems. He’s going to be fine.” She nods, choosing to agree with him, as she tries to let herself believe him.

 

“I love you”, he says, rubbing their noses together. The distraction tactic works, her laugh is shocked and freeing, he can feel her body drop some of it’s tension from where they’re still pressed together. “I know we have to table this conversation for a few days. But I love you, and I loved you before that dinner, and I loved you during that dinner, and I love you now.” He scans her face, unexpectedly relieved when he doesn’t find any of the fear or sadness present from when they’d between together several hours ago. He feels the tension he wasn’t aware of lift from his chest as well. “So what do you say we go and find Aaron, and find out what we can do to help him get my resident back to work, and then go home?”

 

The poke in the chest is not entirely unexpected. She moves back into his face, leaning their noses together to look him directly in the eye. This would normally be a reason to be worried, but she’s still smiling. “I know you care, you don’t fool me as easily as all your resident minions.” She pokes him again, and he lets it rock him backwards, just so she can pull him back in. He grins, the tension in the room a little lighter.

 

“Maybe”, he allows. “But I can’t go around letting everyone know I have a heart, there’s a reputation to uphold at stake here.” The next poke is harder, and he laughs, gathering her back in his arms.

 

“You threw your heartless reputation out the window when you cuddled the baby chickens at Grans when you thought I wasn’t looking."

 

His gasp is loud and dramatic, mocking her in it's over exaggeration. “You saw that? No! No-one was ever supposed to see that!” She’s laughing again, pulling out of his arms to yank him out of his office by the hand, leading him towards Glassman’s palatial quarters.

 

“You’re soft”, she chuckles. “Everyone who’s important knows it, your resident minions just have yet to figure it out”.

  
It could stay that way, as far as he was concerned.

 

* * *

 

It was an oddly bereft feeling, walking around the hospital by himself. Work got done at astonishing speeds, people snapped to attention when he wanted them. Peace and quiet in the on call room, there was both milk and sugar available for coffee. Paperwork was left in neat piles, no-one threatened to drop their trousers to prove gender neutral scrub pants were badly anatomically designed. Admittedly, that had only happened once, and after the look on Melendez’s face it had never come up again, but still. It felt a bit like having a tail amputated, or so he imagined. Three little residents trailing along behind him, ignoring the fact that two of them were taller than him. What was that saying about having all your ducks in a row? Melendez did not have ducks. He had squirrels, and they were not in a row, they were having a goddamn rave.

 

He was going to line these little fuckers back up if it killed him to do it.

 

…

 

Scheduled on the roster or not, there was shit to be done at work.

 

The upper staff had decided to take turns in keep a subtle watch over Glassman, his scare the other day having caused quite some concern. There is, however, no such thing as discreet observation of a neurosurgeon, who despite his age and constant state of worry over Shaun, was still as sharp as a tack. Allegra going into his office to ask if he wanted a cup of tea had apparently been the final straw, and he’d yelled at her and then most of the staff as a whole, before calming down enough to realise who he was shouting at and apologise. In Dr Aoki’s defence, she’d taken it gracefully. No stranger to run away children (they’d been in a board meeting when she’d gotten the call from the police about her son), she acknowledged his anger for what it was, and offered to have some of her relatives who lived near Wyoming drive to Shaun’s house to see if he’d gone there.

 

He did wonder if a better use of this rotating watchman’s group wasn’t to keep an eye on Dr Coyle, who had certainly kept his head down and his mouth shut over the past day or so. He let Andrews handle that one, since it was his cock up in the first place, but the man was still wearing his badge on his chest so sadly, it seemed like he would be here for a while yet. It made him uneasy to think there was some kind of predator among his staff. He wasn’t a fool, while he was lucky enough not to experience much prejudice in his OR, he knew the same wasn’t true for a large majority of his female counterparts. Rumours spread quickly. With Claire’s patient coming forward as white knight, the nurses and several of the female doctor’s attitude had changed toward Coyle overnight. Melendez was reasonably sure many were in disgust, but also… He was getting a vibe from several of the female anaesthetists that they were pleased they now had the validation to openly stay the hell away from him, without being thought rude.

 

Melendez signed his name off with a flourish on the final document pertaining to Claire’s now-formal complaint against Dr Coyle. It hadn’t been an easy conversation to have with her, but Dr Mohan had thankfully sat in with him for it, sidestepping into the discussion when he’d floundered. He’d been worried the human resources department wouldn’t take the complaint seriously and so was she, but Jess was now fully on board, with a statement from a patient behind her to boot, and she was not inclined to be tolerant of those who got in the way. Jared’s involvement was still potentially a bit of a problem, but now-sober and in his right mind he’d dedicated himself to doing whatever he possibly could for Claire, while Melendez tried to figure out whether he could get the man his job back. One headache at a time.

 

Telling Bobby that Dr Murphy was on a undefined leave of absence had not gone down well. Dr Andrews had been in the room when he’d told him, and the dressing down they’d been given by a professional online gamer who’d undergone recent brainstem surgery that had left him with a severe speech impediment had still be enough for the nurse to stick her head into the room to make sure everything was okay.

 

He rubbed his eyes, pleased to have at least one his tasks crossed off for the day, before the ping from his computer had him squinting at his emails.

**TO: nmelendez@stbonaventure.com**

**FROM: cgonzalez@stbonaventure.com**

**TIME: 12:06**

 

_Hi Dr Melendez,_

_I’m Carly. Pretty sure you know who I am, curly haired girl who works in pathology? Any way. Not really sure how to say this, but Dr Murphy has been staying with me for the past while. I’m not entirely sure what’s happened, he wasn’t saying much beyond that it had been a pretty bad day. Has he been fired? He’s been here all the time so I kind of assumed he’d been fired and didn’t want to say so? But when I asked him if he wanted to borrow the phone, call someone and let them know he was alright here he didn’t seem to think anyone would particularly care._

_Seems sus to me. Does he have any family I can go behind his back and contact? I figured you were most likely to know as his attending, I’m a bit worried. So anyway, thought I’d let you know, just in case it was an issue. If it’s not an issue, then I guess you can just ignore this email. But if he did get fired, don’t ignore the email because I want to know._

_Respectfully,_

_Carly Gonzalez_

_Senior Pathologist_

_Level 5 Laboratory_

_T – (9) 555-7263_

 

He sat staring at his computer for 10 complete seconds, before leaping out of his chair and hurling himself out of the room.

  

* * *

 

“He’s okay? He’s not hurt? He’s okay?”

 

Melendez felt a pang of sadness in his chest at the quiver in Aaron’s voice. Thankfully, Jess was now also in the room, sitting beside him on the couch holding his hand, while Allegra was on his other side, not holding his hand but looking like she was pretty damn close to doing so.

 

“I think so”, he replied gently, trying to be as positive as possible. “The email didn’t really say anything about him in particular, but I’m sure that if he had been hurt or gotten injured she would have mentioned it. They must be friends, she was concerned on his behalf.”  The tears in Aaron’s eyes were heartbreaking, he looked away for a moment to give his friend some privacy as he blotted at his face with a handkerchief. “I’m going to go downstairs in a moment, she’s at work today in the lab, and have a talk with her. I’m guessing you want to come to?” He hadn’t finished the sentence before Aaron started nodding, but that figured. He sent a silent plea to Jess with his eyes, and she nodded back at him, agreeing to come down as well. The poor man had aged about five years within 12 hours of Shaun being missing. Allegra stood up and poured him a glass of water, which he actually took without comment, reaching up with a shaking hand to sip, trying to compose himself.

 

“I’ll let you go and speak with the pathologist then”, she allowed, moving to cross the room. She smiled at Aaron, her face softening from it’s usual demure expression. “In the meantime, I’ll let the others know that our youngest resident has been located and is no longer missing.”

 

…

 

 

It was an unusual trip down to the pathology labs. Aaron was still a little shaky, Jess was close enough to his side that she was acting as support without actually grasping his arm. Melendez ran a hand through his hair and blew a breath out in relief, smiling crookedly at Jess’ little I-told-you-so eyebrow. When had Shaun made such good friends with a pathologist? He did vaguely remember his three residents good naturedly teasing each other about relationships, and he did remember vividly that Shaun didn’t appear to have much experience of his own to add to the conversation – he could still recall the young surgeon’s question out of the blue, wanting to know why he was marrying Jessica.

 

But hospitals were small places when it came to the inner works, and inter-staff relationships were rarely a secret. He was still somewhat surprised that Jared and Claire actually thought they’d managed to keep their whole affair a secret from him, though at least theirs didn’t violate any rules, which was why he’d never bothered to call them on it. He and Jess hadn’t even bothered to try secrecy. Given the number of friends he seemed to have, he would have thought Shaun getting along with a girl well enough to stay at her house would have been a hot topic for discussion by the other two.   And unfortunately, no matter how inane the topic, if his residents wanted him to know about it, he knew about it.

 

You could never have really called the pathology labs as having a slow day, there wasn’t really any such thing. Happily though, today was one of the as-slow-as-it-gets days, which was why Carly (yes he did know who she was, thank you) looked up as soon as he walked in. Along with every other lab technician.

 

“Carly? Can we have a word outside please?” he requested. She didn’t look surprised, gleefully dumping a tray of sample on a sour-faced man who glared back at her as she moved to follow the trio into the nearest empty briefing room.

 

“Carly you already know why we wanted to talk to you today-“

 

“Is Shaun okay?” Aaron burst out. He was absently wringing his handkerchief in one hand, his eyes fixed on the young pathologist, desperate to receive confirmation that that the surgeon was indeed in one piece.

 

“Of course”, replied Carly, a little confusedly. “He’s been staying with me for the last little while, I didn’t really think… What’s going on?” she addressed Melendez.

 

Aaron had collapsed back in his seat with a heavy breath at the affirmation the Shaun was alright, Jess took up his hand and smiled at Melendez in sympathy. He turned back to Carly. “Dr Murphy did have a pretty awful day, on his most recent shift” he said delicately. “Several of us were rather inconsiderate and disrespectful to him, and he decided to call us on that, rather than let it go, as, I guess, he should have.” He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, chancing a quick glance at Aaron, trying to gauge his mood.   “He had been sleeping at the hospital for a few nights, not feeling he could go home, and later on that night he left the hospital after quite an explosive… personal matter.”, he tried, not knowing how to say Shaun had gone into what Aaron had described as a full scale meltdown. “It ended badly, he ran off and we didn’t get a chance to talk to him, and we haven’t been able to get in contact with him these last few days. How exactly did he get in contact with you?” he finished up curiously, leaning forward to brace his forearms against his thighs.

 

To his surprise, Carly blushed a little. “A bit of an accident really, I sort of… very accidentally… hit him with my car”. She hastened to explain further, at the look of utter horror that had just appeared on Aaron’s face. “But it wasn’t like that! I was driving home, it was nearly dark by then, and a guy jumped out on the road in front of me. I swerved to avoid him right away, I think I clipped him with the very edge of the bonnet as I spun. It was an accident”, she concluded, a little shamefacedly. “He wasn’t hurt, it was the first thing I checked. I knocked him over, and when I got out to go help I recognised him, so…” she trailed off, trying to read the expressions on the faces in front of her. “Is he in trouble?”

 

“No, no”, he assured her, trying to look non-threatening. “But Dr Glassman has been Shaun’s mentor for quite a few years, and when Shaun left the hospital so upset the other night, we were extremely worried for him” he said, hoping she would get it. She did seem to, her face opening with the understanding that intuition brings.

 

“Yeah, okay, that does make sense” she said slowly. “When I found him out there he did look… pretty upset. I thought he’d just had a rough day, and when he said he wasn’t going back to work I kind of figured that the rough day was from being fired.”

 

He shot a worried look at Aaron. Had there been some kind of threat that Shaun wasn’t allowed to come back to work unless he accept the therapist’s help Aaron hadn’t wanted to tell them about? But Aaron, who had previously only looked relieved and upset, was now looking confused and upset. “I don’t know why he’d think he couldn’t come back to work,” the old man said softly. “That never came up. “Why…?”

 

Carly now looked clearly alarmed, worried that she had said the wrong thing. “Maybe it’s just a big misunderstanding?” she offered hopefully. “I get off at 5, and he’s still at my place so you could follow me home and talk to him?”

 

Aaron’s eyes went glassy again, and Melendez too thought now might be a good time to provide a hand on the shoulder for support. “I ah, thank you, thank you very much. I would be very grateful if you would let me follow you to your home today, I-“ he gulped unable to say more, and Jess softly chimed in. “We might all follow you back, if that’s alright Carly. Sort this out before it has the chance to become any bigger.”

 

Carly was nodding in agreement, trying to put the trio, all of whom vastly outranked her, at ease. “Of course. I’ll meet you in the foyer, I guess, at around quarter past 5? She nodded, seeing Jess’ agreement. “I’ll see you then.”

 

She stood up and was making to leave the room when Aaron spoke up suddenly. “Carly? Ah, how, how were you friends with Shaun?”

 

She bumped her hip against the doorway and bit her lip for a moment. “I guess we became friends when he came to drop off samples. He was there a fair bit, more than most of the other surgeons I saw.” She turned her head to fake glare at Melendez. “Didn’t appreciate that by the way. You sending minions does not actually make the patient lists any shorted.” He just put his hands up in defeat.

 

“We got on well together, mostly after that time he threatened to throw a rock through my window if I didn’t give him the results back”. She smiled at their incredulous looks. “Yeah well, I’m a sucker for people who don’t waste time with niceties. I don’t know.   Claire and I meet up every now and then to get lunch, so he used to come occasionally. Met up with him a couple of times for a hot chocolate, though I was graciously allowed to drink coffee.” She snorted, shaking her head, before looking up sharply. “Oh! We’re not dating, if that’s what you were asking. I don’t really know him that well, we just… get on”, she finished lamely.

 

Aaron shook his head, “No, I wasn’t trying to pry”, he fumbled. “I just wondered. I’m glad you were able to pick him up that day.”

 

Carly smiled back, hoisting her weight back off the doorframe. “Me too. He’s been an interesting house guest. I think my supervisor is doing a check today, so I have to go, but… yeah. I’ll see you later.”

 

* * *

  

Carly drove like a madwoman. He regretted ever saying they would follow her home, he should have just asked for her address and driven there at a safe, reasonable speed that did not involved going around corners on two wheels.

 

He was still shaking as he got out of the car, grumbling at Jess’ laughter. “We didn’t all drive race cars as a hobby”, he grumbled. “Some of us did nice, non-lethal things like – bike riding.”

 

This reasonable point of logic did not make her cease snickering.  

 

She did stop her teasing however as they climbed upstairs, keeping an eye on Aaron’s face. He was nervous, not in a way that was overly obvious, but it was to them. When they had at last climbed all six flights of stairs up to Carly’s apartment, he mopped his brow quickly, tugging at his jacket to straighten it. Jess gave his arm a little squeeze as Carly unlocked the door, yelling out a greeting to Shaun as she did.

 

It was not actually a great first impression. Shaun was directly on the other side of the door, likely to say hello to Carly as soon as she’d gotten home. He took one look at the four of them together and immediately turned red.

 

It wasn’t smooth, Carly was trying to explain how she didn’t realise Shaun had personal connections inside the hospital, that she had been trying to find his emergency contacts. Aaron looked ready to fall over in relief at the sight of Shaun actually in front of him, and Melendez may have said something entirely inappropriate about expecting him back at work in the morning. He wasn’t good at situations like this. It showed.

 

The saviour of their jumble of voices and Shaun’s reddening face and twitching hands, was Jess. As usual.

 

De-escalating the situation, in her usual calm voice, with a brief look of apology to Carly, for more or less commandeering her home, the three men ended up sitting on the couch, rather pointedly not watching each other.

 

Carly, who was smart enough to realise just how messy the situation she’d stumbled upon was, volunteered to go and make tea and shot out of her own living room as though she was on the run. She didn’t come back until more than an hour later, to leave a jug of water and some glasses, after the last of the raised voices had lowered, and everyone was back to normal.

 

It was heartbreaking, how Shaun expected people to just give up on him. He’d called them both on it – not Jess, who was playing mediator. He was upset at Melendez for not respecting him (and the squirm of guilt inside his stomach agreed with Shaun) and he was very upset with Aaron, for refusing to allow him the right to make his own decisions, even when others didn’t agree with them. Melendez was uncomfortable, unused to the blunt honesty the emotional discussion was carried out with. If he was honest though, entirely inside the privacy of his own mind – he was mostly uncomfortable because Shaun raised points he had to agree with. Not all of them – sometimes the way things worked out in medicine came down to who was standing beside you and whose idea made the most sense, but he had been unfair to Shaun. And now he got to listen to the young surgeon say it.

 

They’d talked first, mostly so Melendez could play for time to allow Aaron to gather himself. By the end of it, he had apologised for not respecting Shaun, and with Jess to help (and suggest, and initiate, and flesh out), they had etched out a rough agreement of how they would interact when they felt the other was treating them unfairly. It was considerably more skewed to Shaun’s side, but that was, well, his fault.

 

“So does this mean you’re going to come back to work?” he asked Shaun, as the discussion wound down. He visibly thought about it, curled up in a ball at the farthest end of Carly’s couch he could be.

 

“I would like to come back to work.”, Shaun said haltingly. “I miss getting to see Claire and Jared every day. And I want to see Bobby’s MRI scans. And I want to get paid again, because I owe Carly $54.17 for the food I have consumed since I have stayed here.” Melendez let out a small chuckle of relief that stuck in his throat a bit when his brain caught up with the middle part of Shaun’s answer.

 

Jess, thankfully, decided to step in before he said the wrong thing. “That’s great Shaun, we’ll be glad to see you back”, she smiled gently. “Claire will be thrilled to see you again, I know she’s missed having you around the last few days.”

 

Shaun blinked rapidly, his speech clinical and detached. “I don’t think Claire has missed me. Claire has not contacted me since Thursday last week.”

 

Jess hesitated. “There’s been a few problems at the hospital since you’ve been gone, Shaun.” He slowly met her gaze, and looked back away. “I can’t tell you what’s happened to Claire lately – she’s alright, but she’s had some issues that I can’t tell you about due to confidentiality agreements”. They watched him slowly nod in belief, relieved that he wasn’t sceptical of the explanation around Claire’s lack of correspondence. “I’m sure she’d tell you, but you would need to ask her that, rather than us.”

 

Shaun played with the cushion in his lap, smoothing the sequins down one way, and then the other. “Is it something to do with Jared?” he asked.

 

“Jared was involved yes, but it wasn’t really about Jared” Jess said calmly. “I’m sorry Shaun. I know you want answers, but I really think you need to ask them what’s happened, rather than me. It just isn’t my story to tell.” He accepted that with a definite nod, and for a little while they sat their in silence, just watching Shaun idly play with the sequins on the cushion.

 

After a moment, Jess stirred, rising up from the yoga ball. “Neil? How about we give Carly a hand in the kitchen?” she prompted, holding out a hand for him. Realising her intentions, he got to his feet in a rush, making to follow his fiancée into the kitchen before pausing, and walking over to stand in front of Shaun.

 

He raised an eyebrow sternly and stuck his right hand out. “I expect to see you Friday morning, Dr Murphy, eight am sharp. Agreed?” His voice was softer that he wanted it to be, with almost a nervous twinge in it, though he was probably imagining that.

 

Shaun looked at his hand as though he expected it to detach itself from Melendez’s arm and bite him on the nose, but eventually he reached out and grasped it, and they shook with three, jerky pumps. “Agreed”.

 

…

 

Carly’s apartment was weirdly designed. For some reason, it travelled around the corner of the building, which put the kitchen nearly as far away from the living room as you could get. Given that this meant he didn’t have to sit at the table and pretend not to be able to hear the conversation going on, he was very grateful to the architects. At their footsteps, Carly poked her head out of what must have been her bedroom and assessed the area before bringing the rest of herself out.

 

“I’d offer you guys something to eat, but, well, I have leftover pizza, some stale bread that might actually be good for toast, and spaghetti noodles”, she grinned. “Any of them sound appealing?”

 

They both laughed. “How about a teabag?” Jess asked. Carly nodded sagely. “Got them in spades. You can have black tea, or you can dip your hand into this jar and brave the lucky dip of flavoured teas I can no longer be bothered to keep in many little boxes.”

 

The both reached for the black tea – “Boring”, Carly muttered, when they all heard Shaun’s voice, raised in agitation. It went back down quickly, but the mood in the kitchen sobered a little, as Carly went to fill the kettle.

 

“So I was thinking,” she started slowly, “it was a bit unfair of you guys to agree to follow me home. I didn’t realise he had actually done a runner to get away from you.”

 

He sighed. His turn. “Yeah it probably was. If it’s worth anything, I’m sorry we left you out from that fact. We were a bit…” he trailed off, trying to think of another word than what was about to come out, when Jess beat him to the punch and said it anyway.

“Desperate”.

 

Carly nodded. “Yeah I guess. It’s not like I can’t see why you were worried, he did run out on a street full of traffic, but man, it’s impossible trying to cross the road there, there’s a never a brake in the traffic and there’s no traffic lights to-“, she rambled on, happily telling them about the neighbourhood, from the traffic problems to the Jehovah’s Witness’s who were dedicated enough to climb all 10 flights of stairs through the building.

 

Melendez mentally thanked someone the pathologist wasn’t a surgical nurse, before telling himself that was unkind, even though he still thought it was true.

 

Eventually though, Carly trailed off, prompted by two more people coming into the kitchen. Both Shaun and Aaron’s eyes were shiny, their sleeves damp with tear tracts. But they were standing next to each other, and Aaron was smiling, while Shaun simply looked tired, but vaguely content in the way that he did after a good day at work. Jess got up to give Aaron a hug, almost moving to give Shaun one before reigning herself back to touch him briefly on the arm, while giving him a smile.

 

Melendez left himself firmly in his chair, though he too was grinning at his returning underling and the neurosurgeon.

 

“I am tired and I want to go home now”, Shaun declared bluntly.

 

Carly laughed, saluting him with what must be the world’s biggest mug of tea ever made. “You're welcome to come back next time you have a shitty day so we can eat sushi and watch bad renovation shows”, she grinned.

 

He gave her a little smile in return, rocking backwards on his heels before offering back, “I would like that. I like watching the decoration rooms with you.”

 

The little party shuffled out, emptying tea cups and digging car keys out from various places, saying thank you to Carly after thoroughly invading her home with little warning.

 

He gave a brief wave to Aaron and Shaun as he got into the drivers seat, glad that the trip home was going to actually obey the speed limit, and not send the rev needle into the red zone. The car rocked a little as Jess climbed in and put her seatbelt on, and he was about to start the car when she leaned over and kissed him, before pulling back and beaming.

 

“Told you” she sang, in an I-told-you-so voice that was as close to a sing-song voice as Jess ever got. “See you at work on Friday morning, bah. You are a big softy.”

 

He let out a humph as he started the car, though not before he taken her hand to squeeze it back.

One of his squirrels was back in line, now the other two to go.

 

* * *

  

Claire’s complaint against Coyle was now almost out of his hands, left to those in HR. She still wasn’t quite her usual self, but she seemed better. Having Jess on your side did that, but her biggest huff of relief seemed to stem from Melendez promising that he believed her.

 

He’d resolved to keep a closer eye on her until the issue closed, though he made few visible exceptions or allowances. He had, however, made a note on her file that she was not allowed to be designated to assist Dr Coyle under any circumstances bar total emergencies. He was hesitant to allow her to stick with him however, and still trying to work out the best course of action when Dr Lim asked if he could possibly spare a resident for a few days to assist her with the maternal osteosarcoma case.

 

Yes, yes he could. Shaun was coming back tomorrow, and he was still trying to work out what his options where with Jared, and he all too happily dumped Claire under Dr Lim’s temporary control like he was dropping her off at preschool.

 

Which was oddly what this felt like.

 

…

 

 

The arguments with Andrews were not getting very far, it was a relief to be interrupted by a knock on the door.

 

The two well dressed men gave Melendez a brief nod of acknowledgement, before turning to Andrews.

 

“Dr Marcus Andrews?”

 

“That’s me”, he confirmed. “Is there something I can help you with, Mr…?”

 

“Mr Jason, and Mr Tickes”, the shorted of the two men announced. “We’re of Jason & Son’s Lawyers, and we're here to serve you with wrongful dismissal of junior resident Dr Jared Kalu.” he continued, thumping a file down in front of Andrews. “The necessary information is all in front of you, along with our contact information. I trust it won’t be long before we hear from your representative attorney, Dr Andrews. Until then.” And with that, the sharply dressed duo let themselves out, completely ignoring Andrews baffled sputtering behind them.

 

Melendez just sat there.   He did admire someone who could call in their own cavalry. He stood up smoothly, slipping the buttons his jacket closed, not bothering to hide the smirk on his own face as he left, Andrews now scowling and throwing rude comments at his back as he all but waltzed out the door.

 

He second little squirrel was getting back in line.

  

* * *

                                                       

Now he was slowly (finally) getting his staff back under control, it was time to talk to Jess.

 

He’d put a lot of thought into what he wanted to say. Telling Jess he was totally comfortable with her decision would be a lie. He liked kids. He really, really liked kids, and he had for many years now. But as much as he liked kids, he loved Jess more.

 

He absently scrolled down his emails, deleting them one after another, before stopping at one from two weeks ago. It was a behaviour complaint from one of the more dour post-op nurses, ‘politely informing him’ that one of his residents had behaved ‘unprofessionally’ and with a ‘rowdy manner’ by what was essentially blowing up a dozen latex gloves into elephants to amuse a child, post-tonsillectomy.

 

He stared at the absurd email, and suddenly, out of nowhere began to laugh. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed, almost hysterically, until tears poured out of his eyes and he put his head down on the desk, still laughing uncontrollably until he began to cough.

 

He didn’t need children. He had residents, who more or less were children, in a significantly more elongated form. Who were happily also toilet trained.

 

He took a slug of water, still chuckling to himself as he put it down, trying not to choke. He had Jess, and when he didn’t have Jess he was running a preschool for baby surgeons. He was willing to accept kids in the form of nieces and nephews, and who knew? Maybe in a couple of years Jess would be open to the idea of foster parenting, or even short term foster care.

 

Time to go and tell her that.

 

…

 

 

The invitation to dinner was unexpected. Aaron had, somehow, found the single day in all their schedules where everyone was off duty at the same time, and not expected to be present at the graveyard shift several hours later.

 

It had to be some kind of witchcraft. Or, alternatively, he’d figured out the password to the staffing roster. Equal chance, either/or.

 

Jess was delighted, and had flattened his feeble, token objection like a road roller. The party had quite the diverse guest list, Aaron had invited him, Jess, Shaun, Claire, Jared, and Carly. Jess seemed happier in general these days. The kid thing had clearly been on her mind before dinner with her dad, and he’d failed to pick up on it. She’d also eagerly agreed to consider short term foster care, happily seizing the chance to compromise.

 

So, with Jess happy again, nearly all was right in Melendez’s world once more. He was still in the last stages of sorting out his squirrels, with the decision about to come down on Claire’s harassment case, and Jared’s lawyers steamrolling over Andrews as though he wasn’t there. Isobel, it seemed however, was vaguely amused by the whole situation, as he had accidently overheard her talking to Jess, laughing that leaving him to flounder in his own mess was a good learning experience for him, so many years down the track. He had (wisely, in his mind) backed the hell up and continued on, only to stop in his tracks wondering what would happen to him if Jess in 10 years decided he needed to learn a lesson. It didn’t bear thinking about.

 

His squirrels were almost back in their nice, neat row. Sort of.

 

* * *

 

  

Dinner was a happy affair. Aaron had gone all out, since the man’s cooking skills were severely limited beyond his 30 year old copy of the women’s weekly cookbook, and the food had instead been catered.

 

The man was grinning, all the stress and worry of the last few weeks wiped from his face, with Shaun on one side of him and Jess on the other, merrily talking to them both, his clearly two favourite people on the table.  Jess’ face was flushed with pleasure, wineglass in hand, laughing with Aaron about some stunt the upstairs receptionist had pulled on Valentine’s day. Shaun’s head was pinging back and forth between Carly and Claire, who were having an animated discussion about swimwear, despite the fact it was December. Jared was trying to weave his hand into Claire’s curls without her noticing, caught when Claire turned around and hurled an olive at him while Shaun laughed.

 

The conversation came to a screeching halt when Jarred dropped a kiss to the top of Claire’s head, before freezing in horror as they both turned to stare at Melendez with eyes ludicrously wide with horror. He rolled his eyes at both of them and made a small face of disgust, before returning to his garlic bread. The relief in their laughter was amusing, as Jared pulled Claire toward him and gave her a smacking kiss on the mouth before releasing her.  Observing the spectacle in bemused fondness, Melendez did laugh at Shaun’s wrinkled nose when Claire had to wipe her mouth.

 

Inevitably, his phone did go off as they were finishing up dinner, and it was the hospital calling. He huffed in annoyance before standing up to take the call, but the entire table waved him off in complacence, it wasn’t like they didn’t get drafted into the exact same thing.

“Dr Melendez”, came Allegra’s smooth voice on the other end of the phone.

 

“Dr Aoki”, he sighed in return, wiping his mouth. “Do you need me to come in?”

 

“No I don’t, not at all”, came the polite response. “I was merely calling to let you know that you once again have three residents on your team. Dr Kalu’s lawyers are just finishing up with our legal staff now, and though he’s been given a formal warning, he’s back on the books to return to work the day after tomorrow.”

 

Melendez took the phone away from his ear and stared at the speaker for a moment.

 

“That’s, that’s –“

 

“Excellent, yes” came the slightly sarcastic reply. “I believe you’ll be able to let him know?”

 

“Absolutely, yes!” he blustered doing a little hop of excitement before stopping immediately, remembering where he was. “I can take care of that.”

 

“I’m sure you can”, Allegra said. “And on another note, Dr Melendez, I thought you might like to know that Dr Coyle has just put in for a transfer to St Joseph’s hospital in New York. It seems the climate here disagrees with him.”

 

Melendez looked back at the speaker. “The climate disagrees with him?”

 

“Apparently so”, came the dry tone. “I imagine the HR department will be contacting Dr Browne in the morning to let her know. The transfer will take a couple of weeks, but I do believe the board has come to the conclusion that Dr Coyle will be suspended for a month without pay. After Dr Browne’s case, several more complaints were filed, some of them anonymously.” He sobered, for a moment, thinking of the anaesthetists he’d seen the other day as Allegra continued. “We won’t be seeing him at St Bonaventure for all that much longer.”

 

They exchanged a few brief pleasantries, and hung up shortly after, and Melendez put his hands on his hips, let his head tilt back, and for the second time in as many weeks, just laughed.

 

The others were bringing dessert to the table as he walked back into the dining room, all of whom gave him a strange look as he sat back down in his seat, smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

 

Jared was tasked with carrying the pudding to the table, his brow furrowed in concentration as he carried the quivering dessert in from the kitchen. In the interest of him not dropping it and splattering it all over Jess, he did at least wait for him to put it down.

 

“Dr Kalu, there’s a burns case I’d like you to assist me with, come Tuesday,” he said offhandedly. “Dr Andrews had good things to say about your insight with your last burns patient, so I expect-“

It was at least just a plate, rather than the pudding that crashed to the flood. Unexpectedly, it was from Claire, he looked at her faintly reprovingly. Jess turned her face sharply in his direction, and even Shaun was visibly paying attention.

 

“Are you serious?” Jared spluttered. “I’m – I’m coming back to work?”

 

“Well so Dr Aoki has just informed me” he said a little snippily, lifting his nose into the air just slightly, before Jess discreetly dropped her hand to his upper thigh and squeezed, and his nose came straight back down as he jumped a little. He looked at her, glaring at him with a smile, both of her eyebrows raised before he sighed, softened, and turned back to a vibrating Jared.

 

“Your lawyers are jut finishing up with legal now”, he said gently. “I imagine they’ll be giving you a ring in the next few hours, or maybe tomorrow morning. You’ve got your job back, a warning attached, but you’re back on my team.”

 

The whoop Claire and Jared both let out was deafening, Carly cheered, and Shaun gave a little fist pump in the air as Jared seized Claire around the waist, and promptly started a whirligig dance around the table, to Aaron’s great amusement. They were both laughing, Claire’s hair flying out behind as they danced circles around the room, only stopping when Claire tripped over one of Jarred’s legs and nearly went out the window.

 

“And another thing,” he said quietly, a real smile starting on his face, “I’ve also just heard that Dr Coyle has been suspended without pay. He’ll be transferring to New York as soon as he can get his affairs in order.”

 

Jess squeezed his thigh again, as they all watched Claire, whose face fluttered through a variety of complicated emotions before settling into a beaming smile, as she bounded across the room and kissed his forehead in excitement, before running back to Jarred and leaping into his arms.

 

He immediately wiped the kiss of his face in disgusted alarm, scrubbing his palm across his forehead several times to get rid of any lipstick, before Jess wound both arms around his neck and pulled him in for a real kiss, grinning against his mouth.

 

The room stayed that way for several minutes, people kissing, celebrating, and hugging, until Shaun raised his voice and informed them they should all stop kissing because the pudding was getting cold. So they did.

 

* * *

 

Dr Melendez stood in the corridor, efficiently running through his roster for the day, with his iPad in hand. He gave a brief acknowledgment to Dr Lim as she passed, refusing to be distracted as he mentally planned through the surgeries and post operative appointments he was overseeing today.

 

Claire was already there, waiting nicely, with a tray of coffee’s (and one hot chocolate). To his surprise when she’d shown up, one of the steaming coffee cups had included his name. He’d made her wait for it, but he had eventually deigned to gracefully accept the cup, turning around so he didn’t have to look at her smirk. He was her boss, he didn’t have to pay attention to smirking baby surgeons.

 

Shaun arrived next, on time and with all the appropriate bits of clothing, which had clearly been put on this morning in order, and not on the run from the bus stop. He happily accepted his cup from Claire, and the two of them talked quietly, having the good manners not to disturb him as he mentally performed a hysterectomy, on a female patient with uncontrolled asthma, 63yrs in his head.

 

They heard Jared before they saw him, running down the corridor, and skidding around the corner by the soles of his shoes, nearly crashing into Shaun, who instead of trying to catch him, wisely leapt back out of his way, sending him directly into Claire, who just about threw the coffee at the bench in order to grab him by the shoulders.

 

Melendez lowered his iPad and looked at the sorry lot of them, smiling and panting apologies at him and staring out the window. Thankfully, at least the coffee had not become a casualty. He threw the iPad at Claire, and straightened his coat with a flourish.

 

“Right, we’re not splitting up today. First surgery's in 40 minutes, and I expect you to be familiar with the patients file prior to that, as you’ll be talking her through the procedure, while I…” He continued, turning to march down the hall as he ran through the day's tasks. He slowed a little, throwing the hall doors open, and as he turned his head he caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective glass of the exam room window, his three residents trailing after him one by one.

 

Him, and then Claire, and then Shaun, and then Jared, looking for all the world like they were about to follow the Pied Piper straight off the edge of the cliff.

 

He rolled his eyes, and smiled privately to himself, knowing they couldn’t see it from their position behind him.

 

His three little squirrels were back in their goddamn row.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am not autistic, and therefore it is possible I have misrepresented something in this fic. I am fully open to correcting myself, if this is the case, but I do ask that you let me know politely, rather than yelling in a comment that I fucked up. I welcome all prompts, feedback, comments, and random desires to chat. I truly love to know what you guys think, so thank you for reading.


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